Seegrid is the leading provider of connected self-driving vehiclesfor materials handling.

Andrew Williams reported technology advancements are changing the way staff and robots handle material in plants and warehouses. For AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles), mobility is no longer confined to navigating magnetic strips or rails in the floor. Plus, like vehicles themselves that are internet-connected, these AGVs are equipped with technology that makes them more than a means to move things from one point to another; improvements in sensor-based technology, image processing, and machine vision mean that AGVs and other mobile robots can increasingly carry out more handling of containers and parts.

More self-guided AGVs at automotive plants are also in evidence across the Atlantic. For example, Seegrid has supplied the manufacturing industry across the US with vision guided vehicles (VGVs) for more than a decade. According to Vice President of Products, Jeff Christensen, the Seegrid VGV – itself the result of decades of research by Dr. Hans Moravec, a world-renowned robotics expert at Carnegie Mellon University – takes standard industrial equipment and kits it out with proprietary machine vision technology.

“With five pairs of stereo cameras on each vehicle and the ten cameras working in sets of two, like human eyes, our VGVs ‘see’ their environment with precision,” says Christensen. “Our proprietary vision technology serves as the brains of the vehicle and our algorithms help the robot understand and remember its surroundings so that it can navigate complex environments autonomously.”

Automotive Logistics is the only global print magazine dedicated to the strategy, management, and movement of components, finished automobiles, and service parts, from Tier supplier to assembly plant and on to the dealer, and everything in between.

About Seegrid

Seegrid (www.seegrid.com) is the leading provider of connected self-driving vehicles for materials handling with hundreds of thousands of miles driven. The Seegrid Smart Platform combines flexible and reliable infrastructure-free vision guided vehicles with fleet management and enterprise intelligence data for a complete connected solution. Seegrid accelerates Industry 4.0 and lean initiatives with incremental automation, helping companies achieve a truly connected enterprise and transform into smart factories of the future.